In October 2010, Raychelle Geggatt (Raychelle (Spiceworks)) joined Spiceworks with a mission to make SpiceWorld bigger and better. Anyone who has been to SpiceWorld would say she succeeded – so we're sorry to report that Raychelle is leaving us.

Raychelle's family recently relocated to the Bay Area in California. While we'll miss her, her work lives on in the spirit and success of SpiceWorld.

Five years ago, Raychelle had only heard about SpiceWorld, but until you experience it first-hand, it's hard to imagine a trade show like this. "It was wild! I remember an armadillo race that first year, which is exactly what it sounds like: Everyone grabs an armadillo and whichever person’s armadillo crosses the finish line first wins."

﻿From 2011 until this year, Raychelle has been responsible for overseeing, planning, and orchestrating SpiceWorld Austin and SpiceWorld London. While you might not see an armadillo race these days – "It's a little hard to do that with 2,500 people, you know?" – everything that has made SpiceWorld stand out from other conferences remains the same, only with more attendees.

"And it'll only get bigger," Raychelle says, pointing out her successor Dana M (Spiceworks). "Dana gets that Spiceworks does things differently and I just know she’s going to spice things up to a whole new level moving forward. Y’all are going to LOVE her!﻿"

Before we said goodbye, we wanted to talk with Raychelle to find out how you even plan an event like SpiceWorld.

Well, we’re already planning out SpiceWorld 2018. We’ve got the venue locked in, but we’re still trying to get the hotels squared away for all of our attendees. With SpiceWorld London, we started planning for 2016 before the 2015 event was over, and we already have our London venue booked for 2017. That’s the thing, though: We used to plan each SpiceWorld out as it approached, but as it’s gotten bigger, we’re now working years in advance.

How do you plan to grow SpiceWorld?

There are millions of IT pros out there, and our work isn’t done until we get as many of them as possible to come on down! We do have some growth constraints though: Finding a big enough venue, for instance, is a challenge in and of itself. When you’re planning an event years in advance, you kind of have to give a finger-in-the-air estimate of how many attendees will come. This year, we sold out of IT pro tickets at SpiceWorld Austin – 1,300 IT pros! We’ve never sold out before like that; it was incredible! But it was also bittersweet: We didn’t want to cut off registration, but we had to because the venue physically couldn’t hold any more people. Next year we’ll be able to rearrange things so that we can fit more IT pros in there, and in 2017 we’ll be making room for even more IT pros.

﻿SpiceRex takes on the mechanical bull, which Raychelle says was "crazy!"

How many lanyards and cups of coffee go into SpiceWorld?

Including IT pros, tech marketers, vendor representatives, and Spiceworkers, I think we had about 2,500 people come to this year’s SpiceWorld Austin – that’s 2,500 lanyards right there! And if I remember right, we served up about 110 gallons of coffee per day. Last I checked, a gallon of coffee serves about 20 people. And that’s just the regular coffee – we also ordered decaf and tea!

How many people does it take to make SpiceWorld happen?

It takes a village. While I’m overseeing the whole event from beginning to end, Garret Burnett (Garrett B (Spiceworks)) is in charge of getting sponsors on board to make everything possible, and he has two people helping him for beyond-the-booth sponsors. Emily Perdue (Emily P (Spiceworks)) makes sure that people know what SpiceWorld is and when it happens. She sends out emails letting attendees know details such as where the hotels are and what events they can expect when they’ve got their boots on the ground.

Then there’s Jessica Noland (Jessica N (Spiceworks)), who helps me out a ton with staffing the whole event, which is vital. Last I looked we had more than 230 Spiceworkers taking up jobs around SpiceWorld. And to keep all the Spiceworkers who volunteer on track, we have team leads for each group of volunteers – Jessica and I oversee everything and everyone from the top down. And of course it’s not as simple as bringing in SpiceRex and draping the venue in orange [laughter]. Luckily, we have the brilliant Matt Kohn ( Matt (Spiceworks)), who leads the creative and design team and makes sure SpiceWorld looks awesome every year, detailing everything from the website to the venue to the pamphlets and name tags we hand out.

Jenny Van Der Kar (Jenny-v) heads up all the sponsorships and helps the sales team get all those deals out the door and sold. It’s really because of those sponsorships that SpiceWorld even happens, so they’re essential. Because of those sponsors we can afford to charge so little for SpiceWorld tickets. Most conferences will run you about $1,500 to $2,000 – at SpiceWorld, the full ticket price (which almost no one pays) is $600. We try to keep it as affordable as possible – that has always been the goal, and we’re proud to say nothing has changed on that front. Our sponsors really help us to meet that goal every year, as well as help us keep growing the event.

And, of course, there's Todd Darroca (Todd (Spiceworks))! He kills it with the marketers every year at SpiceWorld. From making sure they get there and settle in to ensuring they learn the best ways to connect with the IT pros, he just does it all! More than that, he's become a huge part of the general session, hosting Coffee Talk with the Founders as well as hosting CTRL+﻿ALT+﻿TECH. He's awesome.

There are more people involved, of course, but that’s the core team that’s responsible for making SpiceWorld happen every year.

How have you seen SpiceWorld change over the last five years you’ve been here?

It has changed a lot in really, really great ways. I attended my first SpiceWorld in 2010 – the same week I started working at Spiceworks. It was totally different from anything I’d been to before and just blew me away. For one, it was at the Alamo Drafthouse – a movie theater! At that point, I didn’t even know that you could hold a conference in a movie theater [laughter]. From seeing breakout rooms pop up in odd spots around the Drafthouse, to all the sponsors in the hallways, to the tent outside where everyone ate together ... it was just an amazingly unique atmosphere.

Since I was brought on to help with SpiceWorld, I faced my biggest challenge the next year when we moved it to the AT&T Conference Center. How could we preserve that quirky and welcoming atmosphere that seemed so unique to the Drafthouse? That was a big question, and Jen Slaski (Jen (Spiceworks)) was terrified that the conference hall would make it feel too corporate and too buttoned up. But it ended up being the perfect venue. The staff there was just incredibly accommodating, even though Spiceworks tends to be a little bit wild and a little unorthodox when it comes to holding events [laughter]. We had actual breakout rooms there, with actual movie theater seating. Our parties got bigger, we had buses, and the event just grew a ton. And when we outgrew the AT&T Conference Center, we moved to the Austin Convention Center. Again, it was a fear that we’d lose the magic that makes SpiceWorld what it is. The Convention Center is a little more sterile and corporate, so it was an understandable concern. But again, it was a baseless fear – we just finished our third year there and we feel pretty comfortable with making it our own these days.

But to answer your question, we’ve seen so much growth in terms of learning how to throw bigger and better events every year. Take our content track: In the beginning, we had a track for SpiceHeads, a track for marketers, and a track for vendors. We had 18 sessions altogether. This year, we had more than 60 sessions with tech experts and people who are thought leaders. It’s pretty amazing when I sit back and think about how incredible that is!

Then there are the sheer numbers. My first year, we had 250 attendees; this year, we had about 2,500.

How do you see SpiceWorld growing in the next five years?

Well, the general approach has always been, "Let’s see how far we can take this." So if we can fill up downtown, if we can fill up the Convention Center, if we can fill up Austin and London with IT pros ... well, it’d just be amazing [laughter]. But balancing growth with maintaining the same intimate environment and spirit that’s always made SpiceWorld different is a challenge. One thing that we’ve always tried to do is keep SpiceWorld focused on the IT pro; we want everyone to feel like they’re family here. We can’t just herd people from one room to another – we need to make everything feel natural and organic. That being said, if we can get more people to come down and figure out how to scale the kind of interaction that makes SpiceWorld unique ... well, I think we’re open to that.

I have complete faith that Dana Moberly (Dana M (Spiceworks)), who's taking over for me, will get that done – she knows how it all works. And if one day SpiceWorld takes over Austin the same way South by Southwest does, well ... I wouldn't be surprised.

﻿Raychelle, standing front and center

What are some of unexpected things that have happened at SpiceWorld?

Back in 2011, we had SpiceRex riding a mechanical bull out at the Salt Lick. That was pretty wild! And just this year at Austin, we had a galactic-themed party that was huge! Between the live band, the awesome food, and the Spice Wars decorations everywhere, it was an amazing experience!

What would you tell newcomers to SpiceWorld?

You’re going to be in a convention center full of people like yourself. SpiceWorld is all about meeting new people, reconnecting with old friends, and camaraderie. It’s funny because I’m personally a little more on the introverted side – I’ve definitely been intimidated by conferences in the past where I just didn’t know anyone. But SpiceWorld is different. Everyone has the shared experience of working in IT and using Spiceworks.

The result is magical: By just showing up, you have a great time. No matter where you go, there’s always a friendly face and a great conversation waiting to happen. Of course, everyone has their own goals at SpiceWorld. Maybe you want to learn more about the app, or improve your understanding of PowerShell, or maybe talk with some other Linux admins, or maybe you just want to network with some other IT pros. But the first step for everyone is just being there. ﻿

Have you been to SpiceWorld Austin or SpiceWorld London before? What do you remember best?
Edited Jan 25, 2016 at 17:45 UTC

61 Replies

I can't tell you what a pleasure it's been working at Spiceworks the last 5 years. My next work home (which is still TBD...so if you know anyone in the SF Bay Area hiring an Event Marketer...hit me up!) has some big shoes to fill. And getting to know all of you both here in the Community and at SpiceWorld has been a joy and lets be honest...a heckuva lot of fun!

Keep it spicy peeps...and expect that you'll continue to see me chime in here every now and then ;-)

Have not been to a SpiceWorld yet. So what is wrong with planning SpiceWorld 'Frisco and maybe Portland or Seattle? There is a schlew of tech companies there or did I miss something?

Because having it in the middle of the country makes more sense to those of us who don't buy into the fallacy of "the west coast is the only worthwhile place in the US". Tech companies exist east of SF, Portland, and Seattle, believe it or not. In fact, that's where most of them are.... not west coast.

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Have not been to a SpiceWorld yet. So what is wrong with planning SpiceWorld 'Frisco and maybe Portland or Seattle? There is a schlew of tech companies there or did I miss something?

Because having it in the middle of the country makes more sense to those of us who don't buy into the fallacy of "the west coast is the only worthwhile place in the US". Tech companies exist east of SF, Portland, and Seattle, believe it or not. In fact, that's where most of them are.... not west coast.

The middle of the country sounds reasonable, I see that as a good reason. Simply suggesting ways to keep her going with SW, maybe starting regional events to "spread the Spice"!

Honestly I am not a fan of many of the companies based on the west coast, like a few of them though!